schadenfreudian

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. A silk crepe used for dresses and blouses.

Etymologies

French : crêpe, crepe + de, of + Chine, China.

(American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

As it turns out, "Gigli" is not as wretched as Madonna and Guy Ritchie's "Swept Away," but after the schadenfreudian thrill of watching beautiful people humiliate themselves wears off, it has the same annihilating effect on your will to live.

I've known Ces for many years now, and I've always appreciated and admired her belief that joy and desire are both central to fannishness and deserve to be central to fannishness, requiring no excuses or outside validation -- but at the same time, I've never managed to become the beautiful hedonist that she is -- I blame my grim, schadenfreudian tm!

After my initial reactions of "OMG that's so juicy!" and the schadenfreudian "She was 'popular' and I was not, and now I live it up in NYC and she's PREGNANT in FL," I began to feel really sorry for her.

In the Nov. 1 issue of Biological Psychiatry, Simone Shamay-Tsoory of the University of Haifa and her colleagues reported that when participants in a game of chance were pitted against a player they considered arrogant, a nasal spritz of oxytocin augmented their feelings both of envy whenever the haughty one won and of schadenfreudian gloating when their opponent lost.

(That it could plausibly be Bobby Bowden's final regular-season game at FSU is a schadenfreudian bonus for Gator fans, who could have the rare opportunity to see off their hero and their nemesis at the same time.)